Saturday, November 16, 2013

Countdown to Xbox One

So I think I mentioned I'm a gamer. Let me clarify that a bit. I have gaming in my blood. How do I know this? When I was in high school I had a son. Long story short my dad and stepmom adopted him, he grew up knowing everything, we have a great relationship and he's now in his second year of collage at SCAD (Southern College of Art and Design). He's going to make video games. After marrying my first husband I had twins, a boy and a girl. Since about fourth grade (long before knowing what his half brother was planning on doing with his life) my son has said he wanted to make video games for a living. He's in seventh grade now, taking computer animation classes, and already doing some beginning game programming. Then I married my current husband and love of my life who had two kids of his own and all three of them game as well. So not only do all six of us game, but two of my children are determined to make them as well.

So when I say we're a gaming family I mean it. And when I say we're counting down to the Xbox One release I am completely serious. My husband announces the days and hours pretty much every morning. He's so cute when he fanboys.

November 3rd, 2013 in Dallas was the Xbox One, Area One event. It was also our one year wedding anniversary. How did we spend it? Demoing Xbox One games from 11am until about 5pm of course! That's right, on our one year anniversary I was kicking my husband's ass at Killer Instinct on the Xbox One. It was a beautiful thing. I loved Killer Instinct way back in the day and to see it out again had me giddy. Then there was Dead Rising 3 and the electrified hammer. It is a-freaking-mazing, people, let me tell ya. Of course we had pre-ordered the Xbox and the Day One games already (Forza 5, Dead Rising 3, Assassin's Creed 4 - pirates OMG!) and we'll be grabbing Ryse as well. We just finished paying it all off today actually. To sum it up - WE ARE READY! We'll be at the midnight release ready to game the weekend away. If things are interesting I might live blog it some. We'll see.

But why not a PS4 you ask? Why go with Xbox? And what about gaming on your desktop instead?

I'm not going to get into the flame wars that the console lovers are fighting all over the net. I have nothing against the PS4. When we have the money we'll get one of those too. But for launch the Xbox had more of what we wanted, and honestly it's the console we play the most. We have three Xbox 360s right now and need one more - living room, our bedroom, the boys's room and one for the girls's room. Like I said, we all game and we don't always share well. First world problems, I know. And as for desktop gaming - the number of games we have in our Steam library is stupid large. We got that area covered too don't worry.

While I got to play the Xbox One at the event in November, I'm going to hold off on my full review of it until I have it in my hot little hands and can really see what all it can do. So stay tuned for a series of blogs reviewing the console itself as well as the games over the next couple of months. Less than a week to go!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play some more Batman: Arkham Origins and download the Bioshock Infinite DLC, Buried at Sea while I wait.